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Saddam Video Is Blamed for Deaths of More Children

The video showing the execution of Saddam Hussein was widely distributed, and surely viewed by children. Is it to blame for several hanging suicides? (Photo: Jamal Penjweny/Polaris)

Saddam Hussein’s half-brother and a close aide were hanged before dawn in Iraq today, but unlike the former leader’s trip to the gallows, the video of the executions (and apparently there was video taken) is being withheld — though protecting young children is probably the last thing on the Iraqi government’s mind.

In the weeks since Mr. Hussein’s execution several families around the world have attributed the tragic hanging deaths of their young boys to the gallows video of Mr. Hussein — both the sanitized version that appeared on television, and the more graphic, unauthorized version that was smuggled onto the Internet.

A day after Saddam’s execution, a 10-year-old boy in Texas hanged himself from a bunk bed after watching a news report on the execution. Police in the Houston suburb of Webster said the boy, Sergio Pelico, tied a slipknot around his neck while on the bed but had not mean to kill himself.

“I don’t think he thought it was real,” Julio Gustavo, Sergio’s uncle, said afterward. “They showed them putting the noose around his neck and everything. Why show that on TV?”

Something similar occurred in Turkey, where 12-year-old Alisen Akti hanged himself Wednesday from a bunk bed after watching TV footage. His father, Esat Akti, told a newspaper in the southeastern province of Mus that his son had been affected by the televised images.

“After watching Saddam’s execution he was constantly asking ‘How was Saddam killed?’ and ‘Did he suffer?'” Akti was quoted as saying. “These television images are responsible for my son’s death.”

The article also touches on incidents involving a 9-year-old in Pakistan, two young boys in Yemen, and a 12-year-old in Saudi Arabia. All of the boys’ families blamed the Hussein snuff video.
Of course, this steps into the whole knotty issue of children, the mind and mediated violence.

According to the American Psychological Association, there’s no question that a daily diet of violent media becomes part of the psycho-social mix in an individual. This is based largely on the work of psychologist Albert Bandura, who highlighted the important role social modeling and observational learning plays in human motivation — and action. (Before that, psychologists had largely focused on a sort of Pavlovian model of learning, based on actions and consequences.)

In a classic experiment from the 1960’s, children who observed film of an adult beating down a “Bobo doll” — a sort of inflatable clown — were more likely to behave aggressively toward a Bobo doll when they were exposed to one than children who had not seen the film.

Subsequent years of research led the American Psychological Association to begin warning broadcasters and the public of the dangers of viewing violence on television in 1985.

There’s no question that there seems to be a lot of Bobo-beating going on — and in a Bandura twist, young people now turn the cameras on themselves, uploading YouTube videos of “Happy Slapping” (random sneaking up and whacking people in the head), beatings, and other good times. A simple search for “fight” pulls up endless cameraphone beatdowns.

Of course, the science isn’t exactly settled on all this. An essay at the Museum of Broadcast Communications, while acknowledging the groundbreaking work of Dr. Bandura, and the complex relationship between mind and media, suggests “even among researchers who are convinced of a causal link between television and violence, explanations of when and why this occurs are varied.”

In other words, not every child who watched the Bobo beating repeated the behavior (indeed, girls were far less likely to do so, for starters). There’s also a distinction to be made, of course, between real violence, as seen on the nightly news (or in online video nowadays), and fictional violence. Research suggests that children make that distinction, although when and how and what it means to them is a matter of interpretation.

What’s clear, though, is that like it or not, in a world increasingly mediated by video-on-demand via the Internet — and in a world that still executes the guilty — the grim clip of Saddam Hussein dropping through the trap door of the gallows was, and is, being viewed by hundreds of thousands of children all over the world.

For parents who might be concerned about violence in the news media, the Kaiser Family Foundation offers tips for talking to kids about what they see in the news “whether it’s the local newspaper, nightly TV newscasts, cable news networks, news radio, or Web sites.”

Why would the parents let their children watch this? Where were they when their children hung themselves. If the children did have questions, the parents should have had a conversation about what they saw and explain what happened.

This is darwinism at it’s best. People not smart enough to see that these kids were TRYING! to kill themsleves don’t need to have kids in the first place. They saw how to do the job, rather then “Oh that can’t be real….lets go try it to see what happens.” I bet I could find a way to link the death of JFK to the war of 1812, if I didn’t want to relize the fact that I failed as a parent by not stoping destructive acts like this.

I don’t think its any mystery young childern will mimic adults. Eventually, it does become a habit or personality trait. Parents are at the end of this process, setting examples and answering those questions. If the parents don’t know it, get educated about it.

It is not the image per say, it is the attitude. President Bush’s actions (vindictive, violent/destructive and egocentric) as our leader trickles down to everyone involved. It is our responsibility to recognize when this effect is happening on us or our children. The “unofficial” Saddam videos were the truth of the matter and needed to be shown. We should also have footage of the many thousands of dead and wounded civilians and soldiers that are George Bush’s doing, as was Saddam’s capture and death. Violance shouldn’t be hid and ignored, it needs recognized as wrong then curbed and dealt with.

Well, _we_, the adults, hang people and we think it’s great, so why do we expect our children not to try it out? It’s true the kids have a low-res view of the game: they don’t understand that you’re supposed to hang somebody else, not yourself. They just need a better understanding of hanging.

Tragic that kids want to emulate an execution.
But at least the weakest links in the gene pool that is evolving in our global culture of violence have been eliminated. I personally want to see a “Survivor” game show where the loser actually gets killed! That would be so cool! A real “once in a lifetime television event!”

People, I know that the internet affords us a sense of anonmity in posting, but please remember that people do read these postings. If I were a parent who had just lost a son by accidental hanging, I’d be traumatized already, and further injured by some of your comments. (Ex: “… if I didn’t want to realize I failed as a parent by not stoping destructive acts like this.” To the parents and families of these young men, I’m very, very sorry for your loss, and hope that you know if was not your fault. Peace.

Freud’s idea of repetition compulsion – that the mind continues to repeat traumatic events in order to try and understand them – offers some insight into this disturbing report. I wonder if these children’s real life replaying of Saddam’s hanging were a sadly ironic attempt to heal with the trauma of watching someone be executed. It upsets me greatly videos of human beings being executed are widely available to download in our living rooms or cubicles without accompanying psychological resources which could help to address the inevitable trauma of watching such a horrific event, for both children and adults.

How many millions of people have seen these images? How many varieties of responses could there be to such a thing? For every kid who saw it and reacted negatively, how many were touched in a positive way, perhaps seeing the cruelty of any imposed death? Of course, the latter is less easily measured but could be insured if the leaders of our institutions would speak to these issues and use such events to shape a better world.

Hanging Saddam was like hanging a Tsunami. He was a phenomenon not of “nature” but of something nearly as uncontrollable, a complex snafu of failed international policy. Still, international policy is a human institution that we CAN control, and therefore by extension we are all culpable for his crimes. By our failure to be informed, by our fear of communism that caused us to abandon our human rights principles for the sake of national security, by our addiction to fossil fuels and a myriad of other reasons, we who have the most power tolerated, no, even supported Saddam and ultimately his evil behavior.

The point is we can prevent phenomena like Saddam. We can start by valuing human life over the barbaric need for revenge. We can do much better with reasoned focus on the real problems, which are complex and demand something other than easy solutions.

Instead of continuing to believe that it is the criminal who is the sole cause of the crime, we can acknowledge the interconnectedness of us all and work to shape our society to prevent crimes. Until then, we will continue to wash our hands with the blood of those sentenced to death to pay for our shared sins. It is this easy “solution” that is the real crime. Until we wake up, I fear humans killing humans will continue as senselessly as did those poor children who took their own lives. Until we wake up all children will be endangered.

I understand parents cannot be present for every second of their child’s life so they can guide their child through each and every single decision, especially in a society where both parents are practically forced to be employed full-time just to make ends meet.

However (and this is a big however), a part of parental responsibility goes beyong holding the childs’ hand through a difficult or disastrous decision.

Just because a mother and father are unaware that their child is out committing crime or spraying graffiti, should they not be held liable? The law supposes that the liability is the responsibility of the parent.

Similarly, it is the responsibility of the parent to ensure their child is brought up with adequate decision-making skills and to restrict the child from being exposed to inappropriate material, of which hangings would be a part.

Therefore, if the child is young, the parents need to be MORE involved in their children’s lives and understand the information and images they are being exposed to…

…and if the child is an adolescent, the parents should have helped develop better decision-making strategies for the child.

In short, one should not find fault with the access to such information imagery (since who is to say that you or I, as adults, should be prevented froma accessing them) but with the quality of parenting.

I do realize, however, that there are many factors that lend their hand to the decreasing quality of parenting which does include the necessity for both parents to be employed full-time out of the home.

Of course children mimic what they see adults do. It’s called “learning by example.” Why are we concerned only about the children who tried it out on themselves or a sibling or friend? The greatest saddest tradition is children doing this to cats and dogs. That happens every year across the U.S. – no Saddam needed.

My heart aches for any parent who experiences the loss of a child – in any form.
As parents we need to acknowledge that we shape their perception of the world and what is considered acceptable behaviour, and realize that they learn what they see either from their parents or in many instances the images on TV.
We MUST edit their exposure and be ready to offer an explanation which can help put into context situations which may be out of their psychological ability to understand.
There are no “bad children” only “bad parenting”

John in Wyoming and Taco display an unfortunate misunderstanding of evolution. These children were responding to a completely novel, modern phenomenon: execution video. In an evolutionary sense, humans could not have adapted to this already. Intelligence is genetically very complex, and to assume otherwise is to make the same mistake as the eugenecists (e.g. Nazis) of the past.

It is time to start censoring all violence in the media. It should be obvious that video stores are as dangerous as drug dealers and pimps. Television is like heroin, turning our children into violence junkies. Before Television was invented children never imitated things they saw on TV, thus the obvious solution is eliminating TV.

If we destroy our televisions we will not have to worry about the destructive forces that executions on video seem to have.

The senseless death of these children may be attributed to the simple spark of this horrible spectacle. It may be that such a spark has the power similar to demon possession wherein Legion drove these susceptible children over the cliff to destruction. The real cause of these deaths is probably much more complex, but we will talk as if there are simple reasons. Simple reasoning makes the world seem flat and the sun to rotate around it. Truth requires more thought and more information. I hope we can apply that a broader view to these events.

How many millions of people have seen these images? How many varieties of responses could there be to such a thing? For every kid who saw it and reacted negatively, how many were touched in a positive way, perhaps seeing the cruelty of any imposed death? Of course, the latter is less easily measured but could be insured if the leaders of our institutions would speak to these issues and use such events to shape a better world.

Hanging Saddam was like hanging a Tsunami. He was a phenomenon not of “nature” but of something nearly as uncontrollable, a complex snafu of failed international policy. Still, international policy is a human institution that we CAN control, and therefore by extension we are all culpable for his crimes. By our failure to be informed, by our fear of communism that caused us to abandon our human rights principles for the sake of national security, by our addiction to fossil fuels and a myriad of other reasons, we who have the most power tolerated, no, even supported Saddam and ultimately his evil behavior.

The point is we can prevent phenomena like Saddam. We can start by valuing human life over the barbaric need for revenge. We can do much better with reasoned focus on the real problems, which are complex and demand something other than easy solutions.

Instead of continuing to believe that it is the criminal who is the sole cause of the crime, we can acknowledge the interconnectedness of us all and work to shape our society to prevent crimes. Until then, we will continue to wash our hands with the blood of those sentenced to death to pay for our shared sins. It is this easy “solution” that is the real crime. Until we wake up, I fear humans killing humans will continue as senselessly as did those poor children who took their own lives. Until we wake up all children will be endangered.

Survival of the fittest? Natural selection? Quite possibly. These incidents are tragic indeed, but their deaths might have prevented these disturbed children from hurting someone else later on in life…

It was encouraging to see that one decent person is out there. Amongst all of the pseudo-intellectual blather about “violence on TV” somebody actually asked everyone else to show a little restraint and maybe even some kindness for some parents who have just lost their children. That we can have people like Kristian in a world where we ask our leaders to comment on the quality of judicial murders is a grace we do not deserve.

I think I’m more disturbed by the postings on this comments page than anything else. All kinds of things happen by accident or mistake. Parents do their best, I’m sure, to explain the world to their kids. Misunderstandings still happen every hour of every day.

I remember reading an article on Kurt Cobain’s suicide when I was really young and being very disturbed by it. I don’t think that this images should be readily available to anyone, and especially children. “Violence shouldn’t be hid and ignored. It should be recognized and dealt with.” Who do you think you are, writing these platitudes, judging the parents? Would you show these things to your child, given the chance, and then discuss them over Enya and crayon art?

If you would, you’re a fool. And either way, many of you writing here are arrogant and detached.

My heart goes out to the parents and loved ones trying to make sense of this tragedy.

As a parent it is your job to expose your child to all that you can, to prepare them for the real world, not the cacoon you can only offer to them as toddlers/infants. Parents should help guide their children through life by building a framework durning childhood that includes exposure to real life scenerios; such as death. By editing out these very real sitiuations from our childrens lives, we only lower the probablility that our children will be able to effectivle deal with them. Rather than editing out reality, I propose opening up the lines of communication that many families dont seem to have. In my opinion, families that regularly eat dinner together will be much better off than those who only edit the information their children take in.

Dont underestimate children, they are smart, intellectual beings who hunger for knowledge. Do not stifle this opportunity to expose children to the world, especially when they are at an age best suited for it. Parents who attempt to edit the realities their children percieve only insult their children and may isolate them down the road. We cant control what our children learn from other children, television, heck even books (if you teach your children to read), but we can be there to help them interpret it and understand it. This lack of communication and active disinterest that so many parents (especially in our society) have towards their children is the root cause of these problems.

We live in a nation that makes disingenuine attempts to control pornography, but glorifies violence, and displays it in abundance in every form of media because it sells. And bottom lines are repeatedly proven to be more important in American than false ethic or pseudoreligiosity.

American children are indoctrinated to a violence everywhere from the games and toys they are provided with to the images they imbibe every day on television.

Americans were shocked on 9/11 by the very same kinds of scenes they “enjoyed” in the movie “Independence Day” or any host of other movies of invasion, destruction and death. One has to wonder – child or adult, if the human mind can decipher reality from fantasy, or if it just depends on who is the attacker and who is attacked.

Americans seem unphased by the video images of Saddam’s hanging, except as it affects the “innocent,” if indoctrinated children, or for that matter, the incessant footage of Saddam being given an oral exam on the nightly news, but were insensed by images of American soldiers’ bodies desecrated by Iraqis early in the war.

Maybe all of it just goes to explain why children bringing guns to school and shooting their classmates to death is not met with the same appall and horror, or seriousness of action that was stirred up around the supposed (but never proven) threat of WMDs in a country thousands of miles away, devestated by years of war and embargo.

Maybe people in America need to pay more attention to social issues than pocketbooks.

wow, that’s just bad parenting right there. How could the parents let their kids watch something like that? Youtube and TV dont have to have things like that and its a huge shame that children’s actions are that influenced by TV and the internet.

Monkey see, monkey do. A diet of television violence, easily accessible firearms, and fewer and fewer decent jobs for young people to aspire to, has led to an America, where many ordinary young people roam the streets armed and dangerous preying on the vulnerable and killing off their rivals.

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The Lede is a blog that remixes national and international news stories -- adding information gleaned from the Web or gathered through original reporting -- to supplement articles in The New York Times and draw readers in to the global conversation about the news taking place online.

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